Goodbye Arequipa...

azul, originally uploaded by sammarin.

Yesterday was our last day in Arequipa, after a month of study and homestay. A few other students and I walked around in the morning, very slow and relaxed, had espressos, shopped for last-minute things at antique stores. I had a last supper with the family. Camila (the 10 year old granddaughter) fell off her bike and bumped her head, had to go to the clinic because she lost consciousness and couldn´t remember anything... that was scary.

I packed all my bags. Then we got on an overnight bus to visit Nazca.

More photos of Nazca to come... I am enjoying the HOT SUN, sitting by the pool and reading, swimming, and finally taking a deep breath now that classes are over. Summer vacation time...

taxi jam

taxi jam, originally uploaded by sammarin.

HERE is an example of what the streets normally look like at 8am (in reference to the previous entry about taxis)... later in the day, it is more dangerous because the taxis speed freely down the road. Freeeeeely. And with velocidad!

taxis taxis taxis

taxis, originally uploaded by sammarin.

During Fujimori's regime, many economic sectors were opened up internationally in Perú - and many products started pouring in that hadn't been imported before. For example, the TICO.

Almost all taxis here are Ticos - that's a specific make of automobile - and this is a shot of an extremely empty street with the exception of these few Ticos. When you ride in a Tico, the experience is so squeaky that it sounds as if all the various plastic and metal parts are going to fall apart instantly upon the next bump, like a house of cards.

To a great degree, I actually felt safer during the strikes because the protesters had blocked off ALL the streets and there were NO taxis... These taxis actually drive FASTER when they see a pedestrian in the way, all the while honking to warn/scold/petrify the pedestrian. There are, I think, a total of 2 stoplights in Arequipa - the rest of the time, people just drive through 4 way intersections with the firm belief that those coming in the opposite direction will just stop.

Walking from one end of town to the other can be quite an adventure...

SHOELACES!!!

SHOELACES!!!, originally uploaded by sammarin.

If anybody needs shoelaces, this guy sells them for 5 soles a pair.

But for free, he will scare your pants off with the crazy growl-scream that is his trademark sales pitch. He yells SHOELACES right in your face like a mad dog.

I asked if I could take his photo for 30 centimos (10 US cents) and he balked at that. So here is a photo of his back as he walks away...

Caminos

flores, originally uploaded by sammarin.

Now that I have taken my last test, I will have plenty of time to take caminos through the city. This shot is from the barrio of San Lazaro, which is my favorite part. Twisty narrow streets like in southern Spain - the oldest part of Arequipa. And every once in awhile you see the most amazing flowers spurting out from an unanticipated place...

Soy la Denunciante

soy la denunciante, originally uploaded by sammarin.

OK - So I haven´t written about this because I didn´t want to admit it - but I got ripped off.

Before we went to Cusco, I went to a travel agency here, which sold me bus tickets from Puno to Cusco, a hotel room for one night in Cusco, and train tickets from Cusco to Machu Picchu and back. But when we arrived in Puno... none of the things I had paid for were actually there. So we had to buy everything AGAIN.

When I returned to Arequipa, I went to the agency to demand my money back. The guy who sold everything to me said, "I am not the boss, so I cannot give you your money back. Come back on Saturday." So I came back Saturday, and guess what!? The boss was not there then either. Or the next TWO TIMES I returned, when I was told the boss would be there.

So today I had to go to the tourist police and make what they call here a DENUNCIA. First, let me explain that Peruvian institutions seem to relish carbon copies, each page of which is violently stamped with great officiality. The whole process took three hours, because I had to tell the story, little by little, to a woman who wrote everything by hand in one of several giant old ledgers that are full of denuncias. Then, as you can see, I had to sign and give my fingerprint that everything was true and correct.

Then, I had to go to a different desk in the same office, and tell the same story ALL OVER AGAIN (and let me tell you, it was painful enough to relive the buying process, the showing-up-in-depressing-hole-of-a-town-puno to find out that there were NO BUS TICKETS, the showing up in cusco at 3am to find out there was NO HOTEL RESERVATION made, and also NO TRAIN TICKETS to pick up, the waking up at 5:30am that same day to go to the train station to see if we could even buy tickets, the paying for everything again, and the returning to try to pin this creep down to get my money back... but I had to go through it all AGAIN with a policeman who repeated everything I said aloud, followed by a ¿no? ("Is that correct?"), while he hunted and pecked on his computer to record my manifiesto).

After he had written the report, I sat for 15 minutes while the dot-matrix printer produced the report, on two pages - one was carbon copied! - and then I had to sign and put my fingerprint on every page. And I had to return with all of my receipts from buying things a second time.

Tomorrow at 3pm I go back to the police station to meet with the officers and with "Carlos" - the guy who sold me everything - and who has told me several times that he simply works there and so cannot resolve my issue... But it turns out HE IS THE OWNER OF THE PLACE!!!

So this guy is what they call here a "sinvergüenza." That literally means he is:

"sin" (without)
"vergüenza" (shame)

... Wish me luck in getting my money back!!

Cuuuuuuy!!!

Cuy is the name for guinea pigs here. I admit that I have eaten two of them. But I feel a little sorry about it when I see them in their little apartments. (This one was a highrise, but the photo doesn´t capture the many levels of balconies...)

E sent me a photo from Jon Stewart´s recent Moment of Zen about the best-dressed guinea pigs contest in Perú. Awesome!!

¡hola!

llamas, originally uploaded by sammarin.

It has been quite a while since I posted, because:

1. The strikes are still happening in Arequipa. Not violent, but effective for making things more difficult.

2. We went away for the weekend to Colca Canyon (fun! - I will be writing about that soon).

3. I have been completely focused on the two big presentations that I did today - on the story by Juan José Millás, "Viajes a África" and on various cultural and historical aspects of Perú...

But now I am back in town, there is a tregua (cease) of the strike for 48 hours, and most importantly, I am DONE WITH MY PRESENTATIONS!! Woo hoo!!

Now I can blog like a madwoman... So, see you again soon.

stuck indoors

at irina's house, originally uploaded by sammarin.

so, there have been huelgas (strikes) here for the past few days. class was cancelled yesterday, and we have condensed classes today - because there is a fear that the protesters will become violent. they want the whole city shut down, so when they see taxis and buses running, they throw rocks and swing sticks.

streets are blocked off with buses and big rocks, and when protesters come down the street shouting, stores shut their front doors so that they don't get vandalized.

yesterday i was sick all day with stomach bug (something i ate? it could have been LOTS of things!) and there is lots of studying to do, so I don't mind being indoors most of the time...

07/07/07

i was here, originally uploaded by sammarin.

We visited Machu Picchu on Saturday, and it just happened to be the day that the New Seven Wonders were announced... and Machu Picchu was awarded number 4!

Voting was on when Mom and Dale visited in the spring, and booths were still set up last weekend when I went with the whole group. Signs are everywhere here in Peru urging people to vote for Machu Picchu.

There were big parties on site, in Aguas Calientes, and in Cusco. As the results were announced, live music played in Aguas Calientes and TVs were all tuned in to the live ceremony. B & I celebrated the evening by visiting the thermal baths and then eating traditional Peruvian fare: cuy (guinea pig) and chicken roasted over a fire.

Check out more Peru photos here.

Y ya empiezan las clases...

at our school, originally uploaded by sammarin.

We started classes yesterday and already had an exam on the things we learned while traveling in Cusco and Machu Picchu, Lima, Puno and Lake Titicaca... fortunately I had studied with my beloved flash cards so it went well. It was a short day yesterday, and the normal classes started this morning at 8am.

I am enrolled in two classes:

El Cine y la Narrativa de España (Cinema and Narrative in Spain) - 20th century - and today we talked about the Spanish civil war. We had read Requiem por un Campesino Español and some chapters from ¿Qué fue la Guerra Civil? I have lots to learn about the war, to understand how Spain developed and influenced the rest of the world events in the 20th century. It is going to be an interesing class.

Also, Culturas de la América Latina (Cultures of Latin America) - an overview of Latin American cultures through studying adivinanzas (riddles). How fun! Different vocabulary for each country, different flora and fauna to which the riddles refer. In the second part of the class we will talk generally (very generally, very briefly, very superficially by necessity) about each country - from social, historical, literary perspectives.

I have a lot of reading to do in Spanish! So, off to a café I go...

en posición fetal

en posición fetal, originally uploaded by sammarin.

Here is a photo of me inside one of the chullpas (funerary towers) at Sillustani. The Colla - a preincan population - built these towers to stick their dead people in. The dead people were posed in a fetal position because they were being reborn as seeds for new life. For photos of the outside of the chullpas, see this photo.

río in puno

río in puno, originally uploaded by sammarin.

Here´s a view from the bus near Puno. You will see, once I get the photos of Machu Picchu and Cusco up here, how much drier this landscape is than the more jungly parts of the Sacred Valley.

Diana lives on a floating island in Lake Titicaca

diana, originally uploaded by sammarin.

...and is totally enchanted by bubble gum.

This afternoon we visited her home of Uros, a bunch of about 35 human-made floating islands which are made by people who have lived on Lake Titicaca since way before the 1400s. The islands themselves and everything on them - houses, beds, boats - are almost entirely made of a reed called totora. The president of the island showed us how the islands are constructed and secured. Awesome.

good fortune

fortunas, originally uploaded by sammarin.

One of the very coolest things about today was that a monkey told my fortune at the fiesta in Ichu. In the market, there were all kinds of stands, including ones that featured fortune-telling monkeys and parrots. The guy in the white hat touches the monkey to your head so it can ¨leer la mente¨(read your mind), and then the monkey picks out with its tiny hand a little folded up piece of paper from the drawer below and hands it to you. Of course all the fortunes are good - but I was (of course) still delighted.

¡puro fiesta!

guitarra, originally uploaded by sammarin.

OK, I am so retrasada (behind) in the chronology of my postings... so I am going to simply skip the glorious Machu Picchu and Cusco and other details about the Sacred Valley for now, and tell you all about those places next week. Today I just have to tell you about what happened today.

We went to a small pueblo called Ichu, where they were celebrating an annual festival to honor San Pedro y San Pablo. People who were born and raised in Ichu but have moved away to the big city return from all over Perú for this fiesta. It is the town´s biggest party of the year.

In addition to a market where people sold and traded stuff for dried fish and many varieties of papas (potatoes), there was a giant parade with costumes and dancing and bands playing music. Rivers of people flowing into the town. All kinds of special foods - like chicharrones and chuños, which i ate - and plenty of cusqueña (cerveza).

mi nuevo abrigo

mi nuevo abrigo, originally uploaded by sammarin.

Here in Puno it is soooo frííííííííío that I had to buy a new alpaca coat. (And gloves and scarf.) The gloves are actually of baby alpaca and very soft.

I told Mom about this purchase last night on the phone and she wanted a photo. So here you go, Mom! xoxo

at the highest point

We took a bus for 7 hours from Cusco to Puno today, and this is the town we will stay in for the next two nights - we visit Lake Titicaca tomorrow. Then on Saturday, we head for Arequipa, the town we will stay in for 4 weeks while we take our classes for the Travel Study-Spanish MA program through Sac State.

The landscape has totally changed between Aguas Calientes, the town at the base of Machu Picchu, and the area leading down to Puno. It is much drier here. I will post photos of both places soon on flickr... maybe after we have settled down in Arequipa. We are at the highest altitude we have experienced on the trip. Some of the symptoms of soroche (altitude sickness) are fatigue, headache and nausea. Thanks to Pacha Mama and drinking mate de coca, I have not had any big problems yet - except for being super tired. I definitely feel like 10pm is the latest I can muster these days.

Up early tomorrow to see Titicaca and the floating islands.

i have just one word for you tonight...

horno, originally uploaded by sammarin.

EMPANADAS.

memorias

ollantaytambo, originally uploaded by sammarin.

I wish I had more time on this computer to write about how things are going. I´ll just say that it feels amazing to me to see places that were constructed by the Andean people so long ago, to climb the same steps and look at the same sky. I feel connected to the past in a way that I´m not sure I ever have felt before.

And also connected to other places, as well as times... people visit this sacred valley from China, Brasil, Germany... everywhere - and they are discovering for the first time, as I am, something amazing. I´m awed by the sense of newness - the sense that we tourists have never seen such a thing as this before - mixed with the oldness of these places. Old and new are mixed again when you see folks on the street calling ¨memorias... memorias¨ - in order to sell the memory cards for cameras that they´ve got, alongside the hand-stitched tapestries...

There´s so much more I want to share once I get to Arequipa about this initial time in the Sacred Valley. Cusco, Ollantaytambo, Aguas Calientes, Machu Picchu - I feel truly fortunate to be here and walk these paths and breathe this high high mountain air!